Virtual Gaming and the Library
I'm not a modern-day gamer. I don’t like how complicated video games have become, and how expensive they are too. I find Second Life frustrating, and RPGs aggravatingly slow. I’ve tried World of Warcraft, and I dabbled in Final Fantasy. It’s just not a world for me. Give me old-school Nintendo any day. And if it MUST be played on a recent system, I will accept Rock Band or Dance Dance Revolution. Maybe a bit of Sing Star. But that’s pretty much where my participation ends.
I am aware, however, of how pervasive online gaming has become. And I recognize the responsibility of libraries to cater to their audience, and in order to keep the attention of the youth (and other!) patrons, libraries need to embrace new technologies and new approaches to interaction. But I can’t help but think they’re putting all their eggs in one basket…
During my time in-class at library school, the future of Libraries in Second Life was a very frequent topic. There seemed to be tons of enthusiasm for SL and how it can change the way we interact with patrons, etc etc. But I’m having a really hard time understand the appeal of SL, and maybe it’s because I can’t escape the training module. But I’ve yet to experience it in a way that makes me think it’s a better way to communicate than say, a game night at the library or a book club in person. I suppose it could save time, if users have the technology in their homes; however we run the risk of alienating users who don’t. So then SL is (possibly?) installed on library computers, but if everyone is in the same physical space what is the value of the virtual space?
I think my biggest issue overall is I'm having a hard time seeing the *various* ways in which virtual gaming can enhance information literacy.
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I was talking to a fellow
I was talking to a fellow MLIS student yesterday and she told me that in one of the classes, a librarian who was on Second Life visited and spoke with their class about the experience. Apparently one thing that stuck this student as being novel about the librarian's talk was that the one could be having a bad day and be angry and surly in real life, but have an avatar that was smiling and looking friendly throughout the reference interaction, and the patron will never know.
I am not sure if this helps information literacy, but perhaps Second Life or creating friendly avatar can help with customer service in libraries...
That's definitely a bonus of
That's definitely a bonus of the internet - users can present themselves however they wish, whereas IRL it's a lot more difficult to hide our frustrations with an annoying patron.
I find it interesting, though, the amount of emphasis focused on worlds in SL, when (I think, anyway!) the average patron is probably going to require boatloads of assistance in just learning how to use the program...